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private judgment, and independence upon authority, to know that it was the very principle which was acted upon by the ancient heretics, and which led them into their most pernicious errors. It may further dispose us to receive with readiness the exact definitions of the Catholic Church, to reflect, that if every man is at liberty to form and promulgate his own deductions from Scripture, whilst there will be some who from indolence, or a consciousness of their own incapacity, will content themselves with having no settled or decided opinions, there will be others who, with perhaps equal ignorance but more presumption, will form and proclaim theirs, and these when erroneous must be exposed and refuted, or the truth of God be allowed to be turned into a lie: but this can only be done by such labored and exact definitions of the true faith as those which were established by the Church in her General Councils. It may be hoped, however, that men will gradually become more alive to the feeling, that as the truth can only be one, so one faith only can be the true faith; and should those heresies which agitated the Ancient Church again come forth openly, as they very probably will, and assault the faith, or should we ever be individually assailed by any supporters of them, we shall then better appreciate the excellence of these Creeds and Definitions, and our deep obligations to the framers of them. They have been the means under God, of preserving the fundamental verities of the Christian faith firm and entire in all parts of the Catholic Church, even amidst the numerous errors which have infected various portions of it, and the un

happy divisions which have rent it asunder; and the disregard or rejection of them by the various bodies which have separated from the Church, has too often led to the disregard or rejection of the truths themselves which are embodied in them. The humble-minded Christian will therefore be disposed to submit himself unhesitatingly to the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church, on the points upon which she has deliberated and delivered her decided sentence. On other points also which do not come within these definitions he will be led to distrust his own judgment, and to inquire what has been the sense of the ancient Catholic Fathers, and the decision of his own Church respecting them. He will feel it his greatest comfort in those hours of darkness, and in those painful doubts and difficulties which every devout Christian believer more or less experiences, that he is not left to his own weak judgment, but can throw himself for support and rest upon the authority of the Church: feeling assured that if he should be led into error by so doing, God, who loves the humble, will never condemn him for his humility and self-distrust; whilst, on the other hand, if despising the Church of God, and trusting to his own powers, he should err from the faith himself, or be the means of perverting others, he would be most justly liable to punishment for his pride and self-sufficiency. But this is a subject not to be entered upon fully in this place; I have only thus shortly touched upon it, in order to obviate an objection which is sometimes made, and which may dispose some persons to regard the various Treatises and Definitions contained in this work with less

deference than that which they have always received from the Catholic Church.

As regards the other class of documents inserted in this collection, the Canons of ecclesiastical discipline which were enacted or confirmed by the Ecumenical Councils, it is to be observed, that although they are not of equal authority, nor even, when received, of equally permanent and unalterable obligation as the decrees of faith, so that particular Churches may, when it seems expedient to do so, alter or omit any of them, and introduce others; yet, generally considered, they are entitled to great deference on the part of all Christians; and many of them have, in point of fact, been always maintained and acted upon as the standing rules of the Church.

But independently of the authority which is to be assigned to these Canons, they are highly interesting and important in themselves, as illustrating the state and practice of the Catholic Church before the commencement of those divisions which have reduced it to its present wretched state of disunion. In this respect indeed the Canons of all the early Councils are deserving of notice, and may justly be considered amongst the most valuable and important remains of Christian antiquity. To ourselves, and particularly at the present time, when we are becoming more sensible of the defects of our present system of Church discipline, they are especially interesting, and deserving our serious attention. There is, perhaps, no particular in which the contrast between ourselves and the Ancient Church is more remarkable and sad than in this of discipline, and especially penitential

discipline, and our Church acknowledges her deficiency in this respect in her most solemn penitential service. every year. But although we have thus gone on, year after year, ever since the Reformation, declaring before God that the restoring of this godly discipline is much to be wished, yet so far from any attempts being made to restore it, what little remains had been preserved to us have gradually become obsolete, or have been taken away, or the attempt to exercise them been rendered punishable as a civil offence. This is now the sorest evil and the most pressing want of our Church; and till the evil is in some degree remedied, and the want supplied, all our other plans and exertions for the improvement of the Clergy and the people will, if not quite ineffectual, at any rate be thwarted and impeded. It would not indeed be possible, nor perhaps desirable, to restore this discipline in the austere form in which it appears in the ancient Canons, but at any rate it might be carried at once as far as the Church in her Rubrics and Canons directs it to be carried; and as we became accustomed to that easy yoke, we might go on to give further effect to her wishes as they are expressed in the Commination Service. Without wishing to revive a single penal statute against those who separate themselves from the Church, or who are excommunicated by her, we are surely justified in asking that degree of authority which is allowed to every body of dissenters, viz., to be permitted to enforce the laws of our Church which we are obliged to receive and even to promise to observe, as regards those persons who claim the privilege of com

munion with her. It is surely hard that we should be compelled, by civil penalties, to admit notorious offenders to the Holy Communion, to pronounce the Church's blessing upon the marriage of those who refuse to communicate with her, to bury with the Church's rites those who by separating from her during their life are, according to her Canons, virtually excommunicated, or those who have laid violent hands upon themselves, or those who having received schismatical baptism have never afterwards been reconciled to the Church; and to do other such like acts.

But whilst reason and justice require that we should be allowed to exercise at least this measure of discipline, there can be no doubt but a yet stricter discipline, such as our Church "much wishes for," and somewhat more akin to that of the Ancient Church, would be a great blessing to us, both as a Church and as individuals.

a Church, we should regain that which our own Church (Second Part of the Homily on Whitsuntide) acknowledges to be one of the three notes or marks by which the true Church of Christ is always to be known, and wanting which we have almost lost the appearance, and in a great degree, it is to be feared, endangered our privileges as a branch of the Holy Catholic Church. As individuals, we should become more alive to the truth which seems now so generally lost sight of, that we are not unconnected beings, but members of one great and living and holy Body, in and through which we are to seek and obtain the blessing of God. And besides all the other advantages to religion and morality which

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